[legion]

We apparently earn too much to make tax-free contributions to my wife's traditional IRA. We had to pay taxes on the "excess contributions" this year, so we are getting a big, fat refund from her IRA.

We won't incur a penalty as we have already paid the taxes, and the contributions were excess--above what we are allowed to contribute by law.

We will probably put the money in a Roth IRA instead, but we may sit on the cash for a while until the house thing settles out.